The Synth
by CaptainGinyuSan
Summary: A synth created by the Institute to eliminate the Sole Survivor finds out that there may be more to their life.
1. Chapter 1

A woman awakens in a white room surrounded by men in strange outfits, they're in all white coats and uniforms that matched the room.

"She's awake, Father." one of them says.

A tall man walks into the room and hovers over her. She's not quite sure what is going on.

"Hello, my name is Father. I am the director of the Institute." He calmly says to her

The woman squints at the man, her vision wasn't quite right.

"Where am I?" She asks

"This is the Institute. You are a third generation synth created by us."

"A synth? What does that mean?" She asks

"It means you're special." Father responds

"Special?"

"You're special because we have an important task for you."

"What task?"

"There's a woman in the Commonwealth running rampid. She vows to destroy the Institute. We have sent every synth and courser after her, but to no avail, she appears to be too much for them. That's where you come in."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"You need to eliminate her."

"What makes you think I can do it?"

"Because you're going to be different."

"What makes me different?"

"You won't just be trained to fight and execute her. You will be trained to befriend her, to talk to her, and to understand her. So much so she won't even know you are her enemy."

She seems to understand her purpose. She stares at Father and squints again. Father notices this and looks at one of the doctors. One of them whisper something into his ear and he nods, gesturing at one of them to bring him something. A doctor leaves and quickly returns with an item and puts it in Father's hand. He places the item over her eyes.

"Those should help." He states

She adjusts the item that rested on her nose and could see much clearly now. She sits upright and gets out of the bed, wobbling slightly as her bare feet touched the ground. She braced herself for the coldness of the iron floor, but she felt nothing. That was strange to her. Is this what being a synth did?

"When do I start?" She asks

"You start tomorrow. In the meantime X6-88 will show you around the institute." Father replies

He directs her to a tall dark skinned man in all black. She walks to him and follows him out of the room.

He wasn't much for conversation, X6-88 only spoke in short answers and brief responses. She didn't try to speak to him that much as a result, but needed one more question to be answered.

"This woman I'm eliminating. What will I do once she's gone?" She asks

X6-88 wastes no time answering

"Simple. You will replace her."


	2. Chapter 2

The synth had no concept of how much time had passed since her training had started. All she knew was every morning she would get up to train until Father told her to stop and to begin again the next day. Had it been days? Weeks? Months? She couldn't tell since she didn't seem to age and no one appeared to be interested in telling her. She would fight their toughest coursers and be taught how to use different types of weapons and melee tools. Her training was unforgiving, but she felt no pain, no uneasiness, and she never felt tired. It wasn't until they moved her to a new type of training. Learning to speak and interact.

She would sit in rooms with one person who would then teach her slang and communication skills. They taught her how to be sad, happy, angry, fearful, and even sarcastic. It took some time, but she had nearly perfected the art of speaking. Her purpose was nearly fulfilled. All that was left was to actually eliminate this person of interest.

A few more days had passed (or, so she believed) before Father entered her room and gave her a case full of various items. In it was a new set of clothes, a few guns and some other things that she didn't quite recognize. She pulled the clothes out of the case and they were not to her liking. They were rugged and dirty with many layers.

"You'll need to blend in. If she sees you in a Institute uniform, everything we worked for will be for nothing. So change into those, and I'll explain the rest to you later." Father steps out of the room and lets the door close behind him.

The synth changes into her new clothes and steps out to meet with Father. Once she arrives he gestures to her to sit down next to him. She sits and he begins to speak.

"You won't have all the time in the world to do this. She plans to strike any day now to destroy the Institute. We will send you out in a few hours. Be prepared, J0-23."

"May I see what she looks like?" She asks

Father nods his head

"Of course, can't have you running out there without knowing who you're after." He turns to the computer next to him and types in some code before a picture pops up. Her eyes widen as she realizes this woman looks almost exactly like her, the only difference being the item that J0-23 wore across her face, and their hair. While J0-23's hair was well kept and clean, with the bangs brushed to the side, this woman's hair was messy, with her bangs thin and covering parts of her forehead.

"You must be confused," Father claims "You see, I'm sure X6-88 already told you, but once you eliminate this woman, it's no doubt her friends and army will be coming after us for revenge. So it's up to you to simply replace her without them knowing. That will be the hardest part of your mission." He explains

J0-23 takes a moment to think about it. This must have been why they spent so long teaching her the communication skills. She would need to act and behave just like this woman to keep up a charade.

"I understand. I will not let you down Father." She said

It was soon time for her to leave and step foot into the Commonwealth. She collects her things into a backpack and pulls it over her shoulder. She steps into a odd machine and the doctors begin pressing buttons and the machine starts to whir. Father walks up to her and hands her a device.

"This will allow you to come back to the Institute any time, it will also allow us to communicate if needed. Do not fail," He says "Oh, and by the way. Her name is Zero."

She nods her head and soon lights begin to flash and a large beam of light blinds her for a moment. When she opens her eyes, she's no longer in the institute. She's in what appears to be the middle of nowhere. There's debris and rubble everywhere. Broken streets and rundown cars. The area felt lifeless. She looks around for any sign of life. She hears the faint sound of laughter and footsteps. She hides behind a car and peaks around to see what it is. It's a few men with guns, they're raiders. She learned about them during her time in the Institute. She's just glad it wasn't super mutants. They continue to walk and she takes a step back when her foot gets caught on a pipe and she falls backwards with a loud thud. The raiders turn to her direction.

"Shit." She thought

"Who's there?" One of them exclaim as the rest of them ready their guns

J0-23 figured there was no way out of this so she slowly stands up and reveals herself.

"I'm looking for a woman. Her name is Zero." She shouts to the men

They begin to laugh.

"What?" She asks

They waste no time and begin to fire their guns at her. She quickly ducks behind the car again as they shoot. She could hear the sound of bullets flying into the car, making unpleasant sounds. The bullets soon stop and the men continue to laugh. One of them gestures to the other two to surround the car.

They carefully walk to the car, going on both ends to corner her. The raider that gets there first peaks around the car and is suddenly face to face with the end of a pistol. J0-23 fires and blood spills from the raiders face. He falls to the floor, which alerts the other raiders to fire again. The second raider runs quickly to the car.

J0-23 braced themselves to shoot the next man before hearing a loud noise and a cry of pain coming from the raiders. She wasn't sure how to describe the sound, it sounded like a laser almost. She carefully peaks her head out from behind the car and sees three people, two men and one woman. They were minutemen.

"Hey there! Are you alright?" The woman shouts, it wasn't Zero from what J0-23 could tell.

She carefully stands up again and this time, she was greeted with friendly faces. The minutemen were supposedly the pride of the Commonwealth, once small in numbers, but quickly grew over time when Zero came to their aid.

J0-23 needed to think, if these were minutemen they were bound to know the location of Zero. But would it be too suspicious to ask where she was right off the bat?

"I'm okay. But, I could use some help." She says

"Sure thing, the minutemen are here to make the commonwealth a better place." One of the men say

She nods her head and looks around

"I need a safe place to stay. My last location was overrun with raiders, I've been on the run ever since."

The minutemen look at one another before nodding.

"Come with us, Sanctuary Hills is not too far from here. You can stay there."

J0-23 thanks them and follows the men. It was a long hike from what she could tell but eventually they made it.

"Here we are, Sanctuary Hills. You should be safe here." One of them say

"Thank you." She responds

"Say, we didn't catch your name, what do they call you stranger?" The woman asks

J0-23 was silent for a moment before responding

"Jo. They call me Jo."


	3. Chapter 3

They give the grand tour of the rundown neighborhood, which they called "Sanctuary Hills", to Jo. Not much to look at, just a few strangers and a Mr. Handy that flew around the area.

"I think Preston should be back from the castle. Maybe you'd like to meet him?" One of the minutemen say to Jo

"Preston?" Jo asks

"Preston Garvey, he was originally one of the last few surviving minutemen. That is before the general came and helped expand our legacy." The minuteman explained

Jo began to think.

So it was true that Zero is the reason the minutemen came back into power. And it wouldn't be long before they got enough of them to overthrow the Institute.

Jo was lost in thought when she suddenly heard one of the minutemen shout with excitement.

"Preston! There you are! How's the castle?" one of them said

Jo looked up to see just what this Preston Garvey looked like, and time seemed to stop. She wasn't sure what was happening as she saw Preston stand there, looking back at her, a small smile on his face. It felt like her and this man were the only two people in the world. And for the first time in her existence; She felt something. She couldn't describe it, but the feeling consumed her.

"You must be new here, I'm Preston Garvey." He said to her

She couldn't bring herself to speak. She only gazed at him.

He raised a brow.

"Are you okay?" He asks

It suddenly all came back to her. Her mission. Her purpose. And she snapped out of her zombie like state.

"I'm Jo. It's nice to meet you, Preston." She said; And time moved again, and she sensed the presence of other people again, and she no longer felt anything again.

Preston sticks his hand out

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Jo. If you're looking for a safe haven, Sanctuary Hills is exactly where you find it."

Jo shakes his hand and nods. It was time to get to the matter at hand.

"I've heard a lot about the minutemen and your general," Jo began "Is... Zero anywhere nearby?" She asked cautiously, trying not to alert them to her true intentions

"The general? No, but last I heard she was helping another settlement. If you'd like to meet her, I'm sure she'll be back soon." Preston answers

"I would like that."

A few hours pass and Jo finds themselves at a complete loss for what had happened between her and Preston. She thought it over countless times, but couldn't find the words to describe the feeling she had felt. She shakes her head and realizes it's not important to her. What was important was Zero.

Suddenly the sound of a dog barking and footsteps is heard in the distance. Jo, sits up from the chair they were sitting in and runs over to see who it is.

It's none other than Zero herself. She's with a lower generation synth, and a dog. She is greeted by the people who lived in Sanctuary Hills as they wave to her and give her quick hellos and 'how are yah?'. Zero walks over to Preston and begins to speak with him.

"Helped that settlement with their super mutant problem, looks like they'll be joining the minutemen." She says proudly

Preston speaks to her for a bit before turning to Jo, he says something to Zero before she looks over his shoulder and spots them. She smiles.

"Hey, you must be Jo. I'm Zero. Came here for a safe place?" She asks, her voice somewhat rough yet soft at the same time.

Jo nods her head and holds her hand out. Zero looks at her and smiles again, she shakes the other's hand.

Zero hums to herself before turning around to pet the dog that had came back with her. The dog begins to bark and growl in Jo's direction. Jo is thrown off guard by this and takes step back.

"Dogmeat? What's wrong?" Zero asks concerned as she looks back at Jo, who is clearly a bit in shock.

Dogmeat continues to snarl at Jo. Zero suddenly realizes what's wrong and stares at Jo. Zero narrows her eyes and walks very slowly towards her. She puts one hand forward.

"Look. Don't run. I just wanna talk." Zero says softly, Jo's cover had been blown.

Jo had to think quick, what was she going to do? Her entire life training for this moment, only to be wasted because of a dog? Suddenly, it came to her.

"I'm a synth from the Institute!" Jo shouts

Everyone goes deathly silent and Zero is taken aback by Jo's sudden outburst. Jo continues to speak.

"I ran away. I wanted to do something more with my life then follow their orders. I heard about you, the general of the minutemen, and I knew you could help me. Please. I just need a safe place to hide from the Institute."

Zero stares at Jo, then at Dogmeat, who continued to bark. Zero then sighs and smiles at Jo.

"Yeah. The Institute is a terrible place," Zero says "Don't worry, you're safe here, Jo."

Jo gave a sigh of relief and smiled as well. Zero then hushed Dogmeat and managed to settle his growling and barking. The Gen 2 synth who was with Zero walked up to Jo and introduced himself.

"The name's Nick, Nick Valentine. Nice to meet another synth. Though I can tell you're more tuned up then I am." He remarks and holds out his hand, Jo shakes it and is then introduced to the rest of the people in Sanctuary Hills.

There was a Diamond City woman who called herself 'Piper', then there was the handy unit who called himself 'Codsworth', there was also a ghoul who went by 'Hancock', and many more. It was quite the entourage that Zero had. And yet, to Jo's surprise, despite meeting all of them, no one realized she looked exactly like Zero. Maybe it was the items she wore on her face? Or the because her hair was different? Or the fact that Jo didn't have dark rings under her eyes; which, she couldn't tell if it was makeup or simply bags from the lack of sleep. At this point, she didn't feel like asking.

Night falls on Sanctuary Hills and everyone is either asleep or up talking the night away. Jo kept to herself as she devised her plan. It wasn't until something caught her eye, it was Zero and Nick. The two talked and laughed with one another. There was pure joy on Zero's face as if she wouldn't want to be anywhere else. And gratitude on Nick's face, as though he was the luckiest synth alive. She studied them for a moment before realizing what exactly was going on. Jo walks over to Zero.

"Mind if I steal you for a moment, Zero?" Jo asks

Zero raises a brow as it seemed she didn't want to leave the conversation she was having with Nick, but agrees, she says a temporary goodbye to Nick and follows Jo. They walk over to the top of a hill and sit, Zero begins to stargaze.

"So what's up?" Zero asks

"I need to ask you something." Jo responds

Zero gestures to Jo to ask away.

"You and Nick. What's that like?"

Zero eyes widen slightly before she laughs softly

"I'm afraid I don't understand." Zero chuckles

"You're in love. What does that feel like?"


	4. Chapter 4

Zero's eyebrows raise and she seems to blush.

"N-no! We're not together in that way! We're just… Partners!" Zero quickly says shaking her hands

"I see. So you're in love with him, But he's not in love with you." Jo bluntly states

Zero's cheeks become redder.

"I'm- I'm not in love with him! He's just a really good friend that's all!" Zero clearly wants to avoid the topic but Jo continues.

"I see. So you wouldn't mind if I pursued him?"

Zero has a dumbfounded look and she begins to fumble for her words.

"W-well, I-I mean, you could! But I'm not sure Nick would, I mean, you're both synths so I guess you should, b-but-!"

Jo stops Zero

"Zero."

"Yeah?"

"I'm screwing with you. I'm not interested in Nick. Just wanted to see your reaction."

Zero stares at Jo before taking a deep breath and falling backwards onto the grass.

"Okay. Yeah. You caught me. I'm in love with Nick. So what about it?"

"What does it feel like?" Jo asks

Zero raises a brow before staring up at the stars again.

"When you realize you're in love. Everything seems to stop. And you feel like you're the only two people in the world," She explains while sighing deeply "But… It hurts when you know that person will never feel the same way about you."

"Never?" Jo asks

"Nick… Has a complicated past. I can't really go into details." Zero rubs the back of her neck

"I know what you mean. I felt the way when I saw your friend, Preston." Jo says softly

Zero sits up quickly with a huge smile on her face.

"Preston? You like Preston Garvey? That's amazing! Come on, I think he's still up, we gotta get you two to know each other-!" Zero's arm is yanked back by Jo.

"Hey, what-?" Zero begins

"He wouldn't be interested." Jo states

"What do you mean? You never know, you know?"

"Because…" The real reason was because Jo knew wooing Preston Garvey wasn't part of the mission. Her mission was to befriend and eliminate Zero. Jo thought it over for a moment before a light went off in her head.

"Because, I'm a synth. I'm an Institute synth. Preston wouldn't be interested in that."

Zero raises a brow and scoffs

"Hey, I've known Preston for a long time, I know he wouldn't care about that. As long as you're a good person with good intentions. He'll like you."

A good person with good intentions? Jo was neither.

"I suppose. So how come you don't take your own advice?" Jo claims

Zero is taken aback by the statement.

"I told you why. Nick, he's complicated. It just wouldn't work between us." Zero sighs

"Perhaps, but, would it hurt to try?" Jo asks

"In all honesty? Yes."

"Why is that?"

"He'd look at me different if he knew the way I felt about him. It would ruin our friendship."

"And how do you know that? Can you tell the future?"

"N-no… I just. I don't want to take any chances, okay?"

"I guess I won't take any chances with Preston then."

"Huh? I told you-"

"How can you be sure he won't judge me for being an Institute synth, hm?"

"Look, just drop it okay?"

"Not until you explain your contradictions."

"What do you want from me? Why are you so insistent on how my life goes? We just met."

"Because I know about you, Zero. You're the general of the minutemen, you gave a light of hope for the people in this wasteland, you made them believe there was something in this cruel world to fight for. And someone who isn't afraid to take on the Institute shouldn't be afraid of their own feelings. That's just illogical."

Zero was deathly silent for what felt like a long time.

"Either you let Nick know how you feel, or you wait around for someone to snatch him up before you do; Then regret it for the rest of your life. It's your choice." Jo finishes

Zero takes a deep breath and sighs.

"Let's make a deal," Zero begins "You get along with Preston, and… I'll tell Nick."

Jo gives a soft smile and nods. Zero begins to laugh.

"Let's hope this doesn't blow up in my face."


End file.
